Articles by:

Rob Smedley

series 3 promo

‘The Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes’ book review

Sherlock’s back! No, not the Cumberbatchy one. The papery one made of words. The original and best. And in Titan Books’ The Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective and his companion are solving crimes far more outrageous than those created by common murderers or master blackmailers. The result is as entertaining as the stories are ambitious.

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‘Sherlock’ Series 3 soundtrack album review

Pass that popcorn-filled Deerstalker, would you? Because with that filmic running length, a principal duo of Hollywood stars, and the fact that each 90-minute feature is advertised with the hashtaggable anticipation of your average blockbuster, every episode of Sherlock is less a TV drama and more a movie that has escaped into your living room. So it stands to reason that it should be given a fittingly filmic score.

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charles augustus magnussen

‘Sherlock’: ‘His Last Vow’ review

Those of a certain age may remember the 90s show Breaking the Magician’s Code, wherein a chap in a mask and gaudy suit debunked a series of magic tricks, including falling from a great height, being shot, and getting rid of an elephant from a room…

Anything sound familiar, Holmes fans? For the audience it was a dual draw: fun to see the illusions performed, and equal fun to see how they were accomplished.

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50th doctors

CultBox TV Awards 2013

2013’s coming to an end, so it’s time to stare nostalgically back at the past year of television and hand out awards to the best shows CultBox has covered over the past 12 months…

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‘The Great Train Robbery’: ‘A Copper’s Tale’ review

Shouldn’t Jim Broadbent have been classed as a National Treasure by now? Kept in The Tower of London with the Crown and whatnot, only to be released so that he can appear in top quality drama? Broadbent is, and always has been, the big birthday cake of drama – seeing him at once both excites and reassures. You know you’re in for something special.

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‘The Great Train Robbery’: ‘A Robber’s Tale’ review

It wasn’t always called ‘The Great Train Robbery’, but history has a way of swaddling itself in mythology.

Back in 1963 it was known as ‘The Cheddington Mail Van Raid’. And in the same way as that title removes any notion of excitement and romanticism from the act, so Chris Chibnall’s A Robber’s Tale strips away the mythology that has crystallised around the greatest folkloric tale in British larceny and presents us with the facts (or as close to them) of what was a train robbery that time wrongly mythologised into something ‘Great’.

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